If you had to start over...

Same here.
But there is one thing I would have done differently,,,, Refused that load of nursery stock from Gaston Oregon to St Louis Mo. It took a couple of hundred dollars to wash out the refer trailer and had to buy new load locks!!!

 

For many I think it’s a love-hate relationship. Some days it’s the worst job on the planet and you hate it and other days you can’t dream of doing anything else. I’ve learned mentally to ride out the bad times because they don’t usually last. That’s what keeps me going. Because in trucking you’re gonna have bad days. There isn’t any way around it. You can’t let it affect you past the point of when you’re actually dealing with it. When you’ve dealt with the bad day you put it behind you and move forward.

 

Starting over tomorrow I’d be a crane operator.

 

I started in 1974 because I loved to drive period.
trucks, cars, bikes, any equipment.
BS my way into the field to get my first gig.
Did a dozen yrs of OTR first, which was a different job than today's otr.
Went private carrier in 1987.
Got on with UPS in 1991 and worked a bit less then a year and then left to go with another union job across the street.
Been a private carrier driver since.

In retrospect If I had to do the "trucking" thing over I would have stayed at brown.
I'd have 31 years in and most likely retired w a decent pension. Still got one just not as lucrative.

 

For those of us not born into money that entered the workforce in the early 80s the pickings were slim .
So after bouncing around a bit trucking it was and is .
I dont have any regrets .

 

I've made above average wage since I started.
We forget about all the recessions, the truckers strike, oil embargo, 55 national limit, heavy steel rigs etc but the country was growing and trucks moved everything so money was there.
It was a lifestyle and a career but now it's just a race out here.

 

Knowing what I know now.........I’d just say self you better buckle she’s gonna be a bumpy ride lmfao.

 

When I started, computers were for dating, but I'd have started a website like this to keep people from making the same foolish mistakes I did. I'm with Catmando, I started trucking, because I was a "natural born leever puller", fact is, I got a couple jobs by just saying those words. I loved to drive, and couldn't believe I got paid to do that, while my construction buddies were hanging on to a scaffolding with one arm, hammering with the other in freezing rain.. I started with pickups and city delivery, to every kind of trucking you can think of. It was almost a game, okay, I thought, try a different aspect of trucking,,but it was all the same shxt, different shovel. Should have listened to my old man( Elton John) and got a good respectable job, you know, post office, UPS, doctor, but no, I was in it for the party and the good friends. It wasn't until after I literally COULDN'T quit, family, house, etc, was when I began to hate it, and why many simply can't quit today, they can't. So, probably should have gone into wrenching for a dealer, be sitting pretty today instead of govt. assisted housing with 40 other "rejects" of society.

 

I make good $ and like trucking. However, I’f I had to do it over I would have done something g that paid well with a 40 hr week. I have very little time to do things I enjoy with my family and friends.